The first thousand two hundred and eighty-two chapters of the Tang Dynasty
It seemed to her almost impossible that only two horses could pull such a huge carriage and more than forty people on it.
But just like that, this huge carriage full of passengers was actually pulled by two horses, and then started to move slowly on the rails!
This is far beyond Song Wanzi’s imagination!
However, although she was shocked, Song Wanzi was still someone who had seen the world. At the same time, she was born in a daimyo family and would not express her shock easily. Therefore, although she was shocked, she still pretended to be like everyone else and acted as if she was used to it.
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When the driver collected the fare one by one, she took out a ten-penny note to pay the fare just like her colleagues.
The bus fare of ten cents is naturally a bit expensive for contemporary poor people, but for a big city like Shanghai, it is not that expensive.
According to statistics, the per capita income in Shanghai, especially for ordinary workers in major factories, is about two yuan per month.
According to the recent exchange ratio of copper coins and silver coins, generally speaking, one tael of silver is equivalent to 960 Wen.
That is to say, the per capita income is about 2,000 yuan.
Of course, a lot of the monthly income of two thousand yuan still needs to support the family, so not everyone is willing to ride on this kind of public carriage. For ordinary people, it is naturally no problem to do it occasionally, but if you want to Having to sit and commute to and from get off work every day is usually reserved for middle- and high-level people with relatively high incomes.
However, what surprised Song Wanzi was that most of the people paying their fares used banknotes, rather than coins as she had seen in Busan.
The ten-cent currency paper currency can be regarded as one of the relatively large-circulating banknotes in the Tang Empire, and its circulation is second only to the one-cent currency note.
When he first arrived in Busan, Song Wanzi was still a little doubtful whether these light papers could really be used as money, but he soon learned that this kind of banknotes could really be used as money, but in
In Busan, many people just didn't accept them, and only some big merchants would accept these banknotes.
The empire began to issue banknotes very early, but the scale of application of banknotes was relatively limited in the early days. The main reason was that the people did not trust banknotes enough. Even though the empire had clearly stipulated by law that banknotes were legal tender, and no one was allowed to accept banknotes.
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But in real life, people still don’t trust paper money!
Especially in some remote areas, ordinary people still only trust coins.
Unlike the difficulties in promoting banknotes, the new types of coins issued by the empire have been greatly welcomed by the people!
The Imperial Mint began issuing gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins of uniform content very early. They have been very popular since the beginning!
Just when Song Wanzi was paying the fare with banknotes, in the Imperial Palace of Jinling City, senior officials from the Finance Department were reporting monetary policy reform measures to Li Xuan!
The empire's monetary policy has actually been undergoing reforms in the past decade or so, but the reforms are not thorough!
This is mainly because China has traditionally not had a unified monetary policy. Copper coins, silver and gold are all mixed together, and there is no clear fixed exchange rate.
Even in the Tang Empire today, the gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins issued by it are independent of each other, and there is no unified and fixed exchange rate.
They tend to follow the market trend. If the gold price in the market is higher, the exchange ratio of gold coins will be higher.
As overseas trade progressed, large amounts of silver were continuously imported into the empire, which directly resulted in the continued depreciation of silver and the continued appreciation of copper and gold.
Several major banks in the empire will adjust their exchange ratios based on the price fluctuations of precious metals in the market.
The empire's currency exchange ratio fluctuates greatly, which has affected the empire's financial policies and even people's livelihood to a certain extent. For this reason, Li Xuan had to pay attention.
In the early days of the empire, a mixed currency system of gold, silver and copper was implemented. It can even be said that there was no clear currency standard. Later, after the continuous depreciation of silver was discovered, in order to prevent the financial and even people's livelihood risks caused by the depreciation of silver.
This led to the plan to hoard gold and prepare for the transition to the gold standard.
For this reason, the empire gradually began to require strict implementation of the unified gold settlement system when conducting overseas trade.
Later, it was gradually guided to convert large-scale domestic trade to gold settlement.
However, even today, domestic gold reserves are still insufficient to fully support the implementation of the gold standard for the huge financial structure of the empire. For this reason, the empire has to continue to use the mixed standard and it is difficult to completely convert to a single gold standard.
As for the single silver standard, it has long been abandoned, because without the adoption of the silver standard, a large amount of silver poured into the Tang Dynasty through overseas trade. Even though the Tang Empire required overseas trade to be settled in gold, there were still
A large number of foreign merchants came to trade with a whole shipload of silver.
Under such circumstances, a large amount of silver has already been imported. If the silver standard is clearly stipulated, then the import of silver will become an extremely terrifying thing.
At that time, foreign merchants will use a large amount of silver to buy a large amount of supplies from the Tang Empire!
As for silver, it can't be eaten or worn, and its industrial use is not that great at the moment. To be honest, this piece of shit doesn't have much effect on the industrial development of the empire.
In addition, as a currency, this thing does not maintain its value. The output is getting larger and larger every year, and more importantly, the empire cannot control the output of silver at all, because Fuso and America are now large producers of silver, and it is difficult for the empire to control these.
Local silver production, especially in the Americas, is said to have led to the Spaniards discovering a large number of silver mines in the Americas, mining them desperately, and then transporting them to the world to buy various goods.
If one thing goes wrong, the Spaniards will get a lot of silver and then buy a lot of goods from the empire, while the Tang people can only stare at the pile of silver in a daze!
In Li Xuan's view, this trade model is similar to the US dollar trade of later generations. Americans are also desperately printing US dollars, and then buying a large amount of goods from all over the world, especially from China, and all they need to pay is a pile of paper.
That's all...
Although silver is not paper, in essence, there is not much difference.
In order to prevent this situation and to allow the empire to completely control the currency, Li Xuan was unswervingly prepared to promote the gold standard!
Although the gold currently controlled by the empire is not large, and much of the gold production is not in the hands of the empire, gold has a huge advantage over silver, and that is scarcity.
Scarcity is destined to make gold an irreplaceable currency!
This is also the fundamental reason why the empire has promoted gold settlement on a large scale in recent years!
However, even if the gold calculation is promoted, under today's chaotic standard system, the price fluctuations of precious metals will still greatly affect the stability of the financial market. In order to completely stabilize the financial market, it will not fluctuate too much, causing exchange troubles, or even
Causing large-scale price fluctuations!
The Tang Empire also began to vigorously promote the paper money system, trying to separate currency from precious metals, but it was not too successful. Although people gradually accepted paper money, they still regarded paper money as a supplement to metal currency.
For this reason, Li Xuan decided to speed up the reform of domestic monetary policy. The current chaotic monetary policy will not work. Sooner or later, big trouble will occur.
Of course, it is not feasible to directly implement the gold standard in one step, because the domestic silver stock is too large. If we directly implement the gold standard and abolish the silver standard, it will cause big trouble.
Therefore, Li Xuan decided to implement a gold and silver bi-standard system, but while implementing the bi-standard system, he also adopted official guidance to directly link the currency to gold.
It is no longer the traditional metal currency of the past, but an imperial currency with legal significance, with a unified currency exchange ratio!
Today's report is the Ministry of Finance's report on relevant monetary measures to Li Xuan.
"According to the comprehensive argumentation of our colleagues in the Finance Department, the currency system has been basically determined. According to His Majesty's instructions, we have initially formulated a new new bi-standard system."
"The new bi-metallic system will be improved on the original bi-metallic system. The biggest feature will be the complete reduction of minting rights and the official formulation of the exchange ratio of gold and silver coins!
The private casting of gold and silver coins will be completely banned. Violators will be punished with serious crimes. At the same time, the empire will not recognize the domestic circulation and payment rights of gold and silver coins from other regions. The gold and silver coins that can be circulated in the country will only be issued by the empire.
Mint is minted uniformly.”
"At the same time, the exchange ratio of gold and silver coins circulating in the country is determined by official guidance, adjusted according to the gold and silver ratio in the market, and based on the gold price!"
"According to this system, the empire will issue a brand new imperial gold coin, one imperial yuan, with a gold content of six cents per dollar. According to the existing gold and silver market, the exchange ratio of one tael of gold for six taels of silver, this empire
The currency value of a yuan is also equivalent to one tael of silver."
"The newly minted one-yuan gold coins will be circulated at the same time as the existing silver coins. However, new silver coins will not be minted to enter the market, and many existing silver coins will be gradually recycled. However, all official pricing in the future will be
Unify and adopt the Imperial Yuan as the standard for calculation!"
"At the same time, because gold reserves are limited, it will lead to the large-scale issuance of banknotes. Instead of distinguishing between gold coin coupons, silver coin coupons, and copper coin coupons, a unified Imperial Yuan banknote will be used. All old banknotes will be recycled and exchanged in a unified manner.
For the new imperial dollar banknotes.”
"At the same time, we will guide the public to use banknotes as much as possible in daily transactions. To this end, we will join forces with the tax department to promote the application of banknotes!"
Li Xuan listened to this monetary system. Although it sounds similar to the current mixed standard, gold and silver are still used together, but the biggest feature is that it is linked to gold.
To a certain extent, this is considered a gold standard, but in fact it also allows silver coins to continue to circulate!
But the focus is not actually on whether to adopt the gold standard or the silver standard. The biggest feature of this currency reform is that it established the concept of the imperial "yuan" and at the same time promoted the issuance of banknotes on a large scale based on this concept.
The industrial revolution has already begun and is about to enter the era of industrialization on a large scale. It is not okay to directly trade precious metals in kind!
In the past ten years, the application scope of banknotes has not been widespread, but now, the empire is preparing to use administrative means to directly promote the application of banknotes!